Saturday, June 28, 2008

It is not the first time, Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty has grabbed the latest installment of her $104,000 pay cheque and taken off out the door, leaving Carnegie members stranded without key services. She did it during the coldest day of the winter in 2006. And she is doing it during this hot weekend.

It is the Canada Day weekend. Whitty disappeared a day earlier than most people -- her receptionist Lil initially thought she was out at a meeting on Friday but eventually figured out she had taken an early long weekend. And an extended long weekend too, as she won't be back for over a week.

The person who was asking Lil for Whitty's whereabouts was a senior who had been barred by Whitty and her Security Co-ordinator, Skip Everall, from the Seniors Center. Her crime? She had dared to talk back to a notorious abuser, Devor, in the Seniors Center where she regularly drops in to use the computer. Literally hundreds of men and women at Carnegie have lodged complaints, formally or informally, (one by punching him in the nose) about Devor, who sells coffee in the basement and rides rough shot over members. But complaints seem to make no difference to Ethel Whitty.

Whitty and Everall gave the abuser a special treat this time. They allowed Devor to be the one to announce the punishment for the woman who dared stand up to him. That punishment was that she would be barred from the Seniors Center for a minimum of four days. And that she would have to meet with Skip the following Wednesday to see if she would be allowed back in. There is no appeal process at Carnegie; a targeted individual must serve their sentence before they can appeal or, in many cases, even learn what exactly they have been accused of. The woman brought this lack of due process to the attention of Ethel Whitty who reportedly responded by shrugging her shoulders. (Appealing at Carnegie essentially means that your sentence won't be extended even further if you act sufficiently deferential to Skip and make this metrosexual feel like a man's man for a moment.) Everall and Whitty avoided notifying security guards that the woman was barred from the Seniors Center so that they could in turn notify the woman when she walked into the building; she repeatedly walked in and out of the building and was never told.

According to her friends, it's as though Whitty and Everall "set her up" to unwittingly walk into the Seniors Center and be kicked out again by Devor. She was "lucky" though, as Devor didn't see her and instead loudly announced to a close friend of hers that she was barred. This was a shocking breach of confidentiality legislation by City staff; Devor is a volunteer who is not on the City payroll and receives food vouchers. And it is a breach of confidentiality legislation that Whitty is showing signs of intending to cover up. She avoided speaking to the key witness who could confirm this breach of confidentiality.

The woman who was barred did meet with Everall after she had served her sentence. She demonstrated for Everall, as she had earlier done for security guard Richard, how Devor had repeatedly shoved his arms and hands within inches of her body to force her out the door of the Seniors Center. (Her boyfriend has repeatedly emphasized to us that Security guard Richard had no part in the illicit barring but simply gave her protection as she later walked into the basement of the Carnegie where the Seniors Center is located.)

Everall was not the right man to complain to about physical aggression though, as he had allowed his security guard, Ted Chaing, to act a little rough too. Chaing had shoved the glass door of Everall's office in her face as she walked into the office after being led to believe that Everall intended to meet with her about her barring (about the sentence she had arleady served). Everall had decided that he wanted her to wait outside for a moment before he met with her, but it had apparently not occurred to either of these security men to tell her that verbally.

Everall acknowledged to this woman that he recognized that she was at risk from Devor. He said he wanted to "caution" her that it wouldn't be in her best interests to go down to the basement (where the Seniors Center as well as other facilities such as washrooms and a weight lifting room are located) while Devor was there. But neither he or Whitty, whom the woman also told of Devor's behaviour, have done anything to ensure safety in the building.

It has now been 14 days that this woman has been denied access to the Vancouver Public Library computers in the Seniors Center. She told Whitty, according to her boyfriend, that she needed access to computers in the Seniors Center because the computer room on the third floor was crawling with bed bugs. (A complaint will be lodged about Whitty to the Health Dept. next week by several people fed up with the bugs she has left behind when she took off on vacation. Some say they're scabbies, some say fleas, some say bed bugs.) But the woman was so desperate for a computer one evening recently that she decided to check out the third floor computer room to see if there were any available.

When she looked in the window of the computer room which she found locked, she was yelled at and chased off the floor by a "nutty Nicaraguan". A male witness coming up the stairs saw this and asked, "What's going on?". The woman said, "I'm getting out of here. I don't want to talk to him." She knew Everall would bar her if she talked back. This Nicaraguan, who has a bullet hole in one eye, previously crossed the floor of the computer room and lunged at her with his hands going for her neck because he claimed she was too slow in closing down the windows on her computer when her time was up. (Usually computer users are given a five minute warning but she says he didn't give her one.) Both male and female members of Carnegie have complained about the craziness of this Nicaraguan. Learning Center staff won't allow him to volunteer there any longer. But he has been given the green light by Everall and Whitty -- after getting disappeared for a couple of weeks -- to return to take shifts in the 3rd floor computer room.

This woman, who needs computer access, has been left stranded by Whitty who allows her barring to go on and on and on and on. Whitty had stated two weeks ago that she would be speaking to a key witness (who favored the woman's version of events) but coveniently never got around to it. The witness said Whitty chatted to him about his music but never questioned him about anything related to the woman. The woman had asked Whitty to suspend Everall for misconduct (and from what her boyfriend said yesterday, she has no intention of dropping that request).

So now Ms. Whitty is on vacation, enjoying a few lazy days in the sun. Lazy days for which she is well rehearsed.

Whitty's victim -- victim is the right word here -- is stranded without computer because Whitty and Everall have stripped her (and other Carnegie members) of civil liberties that are one of the many things about Canada to be celebrated on Canada Day.

Friday, June 27, 2008

The upstairs welfare office at Powell and Main was to be sprayed for bed bugs today, according to a staff person from there who was chatting on the sidewalk. Another worker was asking her about it because she said, "I saw a pest control truck parked outside."

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Ethel Whitty has once again thumbed her nose at funders. She will lock the Carnegie Learning Center every Saturday until September.

The Learning Center is sufficiently funded to remain open throughout the summer, including Saturdays. But it will be closed on Saturdays because Carnegie staff couldn't get it together to arrange for a volunteer to sit at the reception desk -- even though Carnegie has multiple staff paid to recruit and train volunteers. The Learning Center provides much in demand computer access to Downtown Eastsiders. When it is not open, it tends to make the third floor computer room busier and the waiting times longer.

Carnegie is responsible for operating the Learning Center year round on Saturdays, and six days a week throughout the summer. The Learning Center is operated jointly with Capilano College on weekdays during the fall and winter. Whitty, Carnegie Director, just didn't get it together to ensure it stayed open on Saturdays this summer.

Friday, June 20, 2008

This FREESPEECHER from Covenant Zone blog is the antithesis of Ethel Whitty, Director of Carnegie Center.

Thanks to the guy who sent us the photo but wants to remain anonymous for fear of becoming a target of Ethel Whitty who continues to ban people from the publicly-funded Carnegie Centre for assorted forms of free speech.

Monday, June 16, 2008

The Security boss at Carnegie Center who wears a tag around his neck with the name "Skip" on it won't give anybody his last name, or tell anybody if Skip is his real first name. That's not suprising since his conduct as head of Security is too often illegal.

We have learned his last name, "Everall" from a commenter on this blog and confirmed from other internet posts that a "Skip Everall" does work at Carnegie. But is his first name really Skip? Some of the security guards who work under him don't believe it is. But Skip won't say.

The most recent incident in which Skip Everall acted in a legally questionable manner occurred on Saturday. Everall barred a woman after she spoke up about Devor, a coffee seller in the basement who has been shouting at her for years. Literally hundreds of people who go to Carnegie, both men and women, have stories of abuse by Devor. Many have lodged complaints only to be ignored.

When one man finally punched Devor in the nose a couple of years ago, leaving his nose bleeding, after being verbally abused by him over and over again, Downtown Eastside resident William Simpson pointed out in writing to members that staff had seen that coming for years. But staff at Carnegie, through their actions, have demonstrated that they essentially condone abuse.

The woman who was barred on Saturday had lodged her first complaint against Devor in writing ten years ago after he repeatedly hounded her to go home with him and watch pornography when she would try to buy a coffee or use a Vancouver Public Library computer in the basement of Carnegie. He also instructed her to loose weight and dye her hair so that she would be more attractive to men. Even though he had also asked a female Board member to go home and watch pornography, Carnegie staff made the complainant's life miserable. There is evidence that City Manager Judy Rogers resorted to a cover up, even fraud, in that case which she claimed in writing to be overseeing. Rogers is accused of essentially giving a green light to the denigration of this woman by Devor at Carnegie. (A separate post will be made when we get the paper trail on Rogers.)

On Saturday, the same woman was targeted again. Skip barred her without notifying her that she was barred. He wrote an "incident report" while making no attempt to get her side of the story. It's not as though Skip hadn't had an opportunity to speak to her; she had approached him outside his office immediately following Devor's abuse, saying, "This abuse has to stop". Skip simply brushed past her and went downstairs with Devor. He listened to Devor's rantings and based on that, wrote up a one-sided report. The woman remained in the building for the afternoon, raising questions about why Skip avoided getting her side. She even saw Skip outside the building when she left but he reportedly averted his eyes and took off on his bicycle.

The woman learned through hearsay that she was barred from Vancouver Public Library computers in the basement of Carnegie.

Today the woman asked a security guard, Richard, whether she was barred. Richard looked in a log book, found the incident report, and confirmed that she is in fact barred from Vancouver Public Library computers in the basement of Carnegie Center, a City of Vancouver community center. (She had actually spoken to Richard when she had wanted to buy a coffee in the basement of Carnegie and had asked Richard to accompany her as she was scared Devor would become abusive. Richard did accompany her.)

But here's the kicker. Skip is requiring that this woman serve her four day sentence BEFORE she can even speak to him to appeal on Wednesday. That is typical Carnegie policy: make a person serve their sentence before they can appeal, and often before they are even told why they are barred. She was told by the guard that even if she speaks to Skip, there is no guarantee he will grant her access to the VPL computers again.

Carnegie members want answers. Why is the Vancouver Public Libary allowing this harassment of a woman who speaks up about abuse? This is not the first case. Why is VanCity funding Carnegie while they engage in chronic civil liberties abuses? Why is Skip working at Carnegie when he has engaged in civil liberties abuses previously and even other security guards feel that he is performing poorly in the job? Why is Judy Rogers on the Olympic Organizing Committee when there is a paper trail indicating that she has condoned the denigration of this woman and other low income members of Carnegie?

More to come on this case. This woman is an acquaintance of Bill Simpson and we're hoping we can get an interview with her.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

We heard this from Bill and one other person but we haven’t confirmed it yet.A Carnegie member is lodging a formal complaint of criminal harassment against Devor, the chronic abuser in the Carnegie Center Senior’s Lounge.We know that she called police this afternoon. But we are not clear on whether a formal report was written up yet. Her goal, we are told, is to start a file so that she can have every incident added to it and eventually get charges laid or at least get a no contact order.

The story we are getting second and third hand is that Devor has had it in for this woman for a long time.He told her that he didn’t want her back in the Senior’s Lounge after Board member Rachel Davis raised the issue of him playing the television at deafening levels – way beyond the safe level of 90 decibels – at a Board meeting.He is at least partially deaf and likes to crank up the television at about three times the WorkSafe level for a normal person.The Seniors Lounge is a multi-purpose room with people going in there to use the Vancouver Public Library computers and coming out with their ears ringing from the blazing gun fire and cussing, etc. from his DVDs.Anyway, we were told a few months ago, that this woman couldn’t even buy a coffee at the Senior’s Lounge take-out wicket without this guy literally yelling in her face about how he didn’t want her back because she was causing him trouble.

This woman had actually not been the one who asked Davis to raise the issue of sound levels at a Board meeting, although she and other Carnegie members expressed relief that Davis had raised the issue. But this woman appears to be the one Devor blames.

Now, every time this woman goes into the Senior’s Lounge, Devor cranks up the volume to deafening levels and looks right at her and tells her that if she doesn’t like it, she can "Go! Go!". (He speaks pigeon English.)He often, according to what we have learned from witnesses over the past year, takes it upon himself to evict her from a City facility: "You go! No come back!". She stopped going to the Seniors Lounge for months, but this week she went in a few times because she needed to use the computers and the third floor computer room is crawling with bed bugs. (Bed bugs are even crawling out of the CPUs.)

Today, we are told that Devor got angry with this woman, telling her that she had used the wrong wall clock when writing down her computer start time.He operates two wall clocks, a few minutes apart for some reason.Don’t ask us why.People who sign in on one clock, are then yelled at and told their time is "out" based on the other clock.This man is from Croatia and something happened to him there that we can only speculate about.

Anyway, if this woman speaks up about anything in the Senior’s Lounge, Devor allegedly incites the men in the room – many of whom have done jail time for violent crimes – to become very aggressive toward her.She told Devor today -- and this was confirmed by a witness who was standing at the take-out window -- that he should talk to her directly instead of calling on the other men in the room to deal with her.Usually he starts – we have heard this story so many times -- by yelling insulting comments at her, then calling on the whole room of guys to deal with her, making it impossible for the guys to keep watching their television show. And he invariably tells the guys that if they don’t deal with her, their television show will be turned off.“Do you want me to turn off television?” he taunts them in his Croatian accent and pigeon English.(He has been in Canada for a reported 35 years and this is as the only complete sentence he seems to know.)He gets the guys riled up.And then, if they only yell at her a bit, he will go to them one by one and say things individually in their ears, apparently encouraging them to have a go at her.

Today she apparently gave Devor what wanted.She yelled back at him, even though she’s not known for yelling or blowing up at people at Carnegie.She was screaming at him that she was fed up with his abuse.“Find another woman to abuse!!!”, she told him. He was telling her to "Get out!!" etc. etc. This is all happening on your tax dollars by the way.

This is also all happening on the watch of Carnegie Director, Ethel Whitty. It's as if Whitty has put yellow tape around the cesspool of the Senior's Lounge and never ventures down to actually deal with what goes on. Whitty has been seen at the Senior's Loung only once since she started working at Carnegie a year and a half ago; she was seen standing outside the Lounge at the take-out window buying herself a tea.

It is noteworthy that Whitty went on CBC Radio a few months ago and accused a non-violent man, Bill Simpson, of being a WorkSafe issue at Carnegie, as a means of covering her ass and that of her boss Jacquie Forbes-Roberts when they were criticized for banning Simpson from the building two weeks after he was elected to the Board. There is no question that Whitty lied outright to the public while on the radio, as the letter Forbes-Roberts sent to Simpson made no mention of a WorkSafe issue. Forbes-Roberts stated in the letter that Simpson was banned from Carnegie because he had operated a website which "features links" to a blog which criticizes Carnegie staff. Carnegie members, both those who like and dislike Simpson, consistently say that he was never violent, never physically aggressive, never threatening. When there is a real risk from an abuser in the basement at Carnegie, costing taxpayers money on a regular basis as security guards are constantly having to sprint to the basement to break up fights because Devor has launched into a power-tripping rage at yet another member. What has become obvious is that Whitty cares little about safety in the building. She will falsely blame a man for being a safety risk when in fact he was nothing but a political critic, but she will do nothing about a real safety risk. (Whitty has performed better on the issue of hearing damage in the Seniors Lounge. Some of the coffee sellers do now keep the sound lower, we are told. But Devor is not one of them and he seems to have more shifts than anyone else.)

From what we’re hearing, Devor's abuse will now be a police matter.There is little doubt that his constant targeting of this woman, yelling at her, threatening, inciting anger and hostility toward her, has reached the level of criminal harassment.

One member said, "I hope she gets the f*cker deported." Most members don't say much though, they only smile.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

This is hate speech?”, defense lawyer Julian Porter said in closing arguments at the trial of MacLeans magazine at the BC Human Rights Tribunal. "This is hate speech?," Porter repeated. "What on earth have we come to."

MacLeans is accused of making Muslims the target of "hatred and contempt" and "Islamophobia" with their 2006 article, "The Future Belongs to Islam", an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book, America Alone.

“Beware”, Porter said in an exaggeratedly sinister tone that reminded me of that used by kids wearing Halloween masks. “Beware”, he repeated, this time unable to stifle a chuckle, “when we are reduced to having an expert on Bollywood mulling, sifting, through the work, prospecting for prejudice.”

Porter summed up MacLean's publication of Steyn's opinions as, "It's what journalism does for liberty”. MacLeans was engaging in the “essential trade of ideas and argument -- at this point, Porter's voice got loud -- argument, fierce argument, dissent, contrariness!"

And here he quoted John F. Kennedy, imitating his Boston accent. “Loss of liberty brings a long, clear road to Cuba!”

The second defense lawyer, Roger McConchie, noted in his closing arguments that this case did not appear to be high on the priority list of one of the complainants, Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, President of the Canadian Islamic Congress. Elmasry hadn’t shown up at the trial.

Mark Steyn did show up.

Steyn spoke to the media (photo above taken on Friday) -- is his accent Australian? -- outside the courtroom during the lunch break. He and MacLean’s are “terrified” that the lawyer for the complainants, Faisel Joseph, “put on such an inept case that they may lose”, thereby depriving MacLean’s and Steyn of the opportunity to have this case heard in a higher court.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Photo by Wilf Reimer. Carnegie members line up outside the theatre where the election was held.

Just one person running in last night’s election for Board of Directors at the Carnegie Centre had taken a stand against totalitarian tactics being used against Centre members. Tactics like launching a witch hunt for bloggers. Or banning homeless man, William Simpson, from Carnegie Board meetings just two weeks after he was elected to the Board of Directors, accusing him of operating a website which linked to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog. These tactics weren’t acceptable to Rachel Davis. Last night they got rid of her.

By they I mean the Carnegie establishment, people like Jean Swanson who claims to advocate for the homeless in her paid work with the Carnegie Action Project. And Paul Taylor who edits the Carnegie newsletter and used it to libel the homeless man, claiming he had gotten himself elected through fraud.

One Carnegie member sitting in the meeting said, “Jean Swanson told me to show up; she said I’m going to be nominated. She has a plan but I don’t know what it is.”

She did have a plan. There is little doubt of that.

Unlike most Annual General meetings at Carnegie, this one was packed. Stacked would be a better word. One long term Carnegie member said, “Half the people there, I either didn’t recognize or I hadn’t seen for a long, long time.” A number of candidates nominated said they had a history of work with End Legislated Poverty, the almost defunct organization Jean Swanson founded and operated for years.

Presumably Swanson used the e-mail list she has access to as an employee at Carnegie to contact comrades to remind them not only to show up at the election but of who to vote for. She did that during the last by-election to get her protégé Rolph Auer, formerly a writer for the End Legislated Poverty newspaper, elected. Auer did not disappoint. Like Swanson, he did nothing to get the homeless Board member reinstated. Swanson nominated Auer again last night.

Did I mention that Paul Taylor elected his most loyal comrade, Lisa David? He didn’t mention to voters that she was his wife.

In a handout at the election, banned Board member Simpson was listed as “absent without notice.” That brought to mind the weekly dinners Stalin held where people who were present last week suddenly weren’t present this week, and were never present there or anywhere else again.

"Unity" was the theme pushed at last night’s Annual General meeting; the word was splashed across the cover of a handout. Their idea of unity is to disappear dissidents. They had done it with William Simpson and they would now do it with Rachel Davis. Davis had been on the radio talking about the importance of allowing a duly elected Carnegie Board member in the door. Last night they would push her out the door.

Davis would have been easily elected if it had been up to regular users of the Centre, rather than the swarm of unfamiliar faces. One member, Audrey L., (above photo) pinned handwritten signs, "A Vote for Rachel is a Vote for Transparency". Jim A. said he too had come out to vote for Rachel Davis. But while there, he said, he would also vote for Colleen Carroll because he likes the conspiracy theory documentaries she shows at Carnegie. (Carroll even concocted a conspiracy theory about Davis; asking her at a committee meeting, "Do you work for the Fraser Institute?")

Twenty-three people were nominated and 20 people ran for the Board. Fifteen were elected:

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

That’s the kind of court author Mark Steyn has been dragged into. It’s called the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. Steyn and MacLeans magazine, went on trial on Monday at the provincial courthouse in Vancouver, accused of making Muslims the target of "hatred and contempt" and "Islamophobia" with the article, 'The Future Belongs to Islam".

Steyn has few options for defending himself in a court where truth is not a defense, his lawyer Julian Porter (left in photo above) told the media outside the courthouse. So Porter and co-counsel Roger McConchie (right in photo above) will be arguing that article Steyn authored “does not meet the standard for contempt”.

The complaint against Steyn was filed by Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, President of the Canadian Islamic Congress, and Naiyer Habib, BC Director of the Canadian Islamic Congress who also works as a cardiologist in Abbottsford, B.C. Three Muslim law students, one male and two females, were also involved in filing the complaint.

One of those law students, Khurrum Awan, was the first witness at the Tribunal on Monday. Awan, a former President of the Canadian Islamic Youth Congress who appeared in court with a shaved head and wearing a pale grey/green suit, graduated from Osgoode Hall law school in Toronto last year.

McConchie attempted to prevent Awan from testifying. He argued that Awan “was sitting in Ontario” when he may have had a “profound emotional response” – feelings carry weight in this court -- to Steyn’s article, placing him outside the jurisdiction of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. “Complainants cannot come from Newfoundland, complainants cannot come from Montreal, complainants cannot come from Yellowknife and seek compensation for harm caused by an alleged violation of Section 7.1.”

Wanna bet?

The tribunal members, Commissioner Heather MacNaughton, a middle-aged woman with shoulder length brown wavy hair, flanked by a younger woman with short straight brown hair, and a thin man with short grey hair and a grey suit -- a trio with a habit of swiveling their chairs around in unison to huddle with their backs to the audience as they make decisions -- decided Awan’s fate over a 75 minute lunch break. In announcing after lunch that Awan could testify, they revealed what a back asswards court they were operating: they would hear his evidence and then “consider what weight to give it.”

Meanwhile, audience members were weighing in on these tribunal members. “Why do they make us stand when they enter the room, as though we respect them?,” a graying Caucasian woman said loudly during a recess. “We shouldn’t have to stand; this isn’t a real court.” A few people sitting in the vicinity registered agreement.

Awan, sitting in the witness box gulping water and repeatedly asking for refills, highlighted points that Steyn had explicitly or implicitly made in his MacLeans article that he believed drew hatred or contempt to Muslims as a group:

1) Muslims are to be feared because their numbers are swelling and they wish to subject non-Muslims to Islamic law.

2) "Islam. . . .has serious global ambitions, and it forms the primal, core identity of most of its adherents -- in the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere. Islam has youth and will, Europe has age and welfare."

3) You might formulate it like this:Age + Welfare = Disaster for you;Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way.

4) "Europe, like Japan, has catastrophic birth rates . . . the successor population is already in place and the only question is how bloody the transfer of real estate will be. . . .The fifty million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."

5) "In a few years, as millions of Muslim teenagers are entering their voting booths, some European countries will not be living formally under sharia, but -- as much as parts of Nigeria, they will have reached an accommodation with their radicalized Islamic compatriots, who like many intolerant types are expert at exploiting the "tolerance" of pluralist societies. In other Continental countries, things are likely to play out in more traditional fashion, though without a significantly different ending."

6) "Time for the obligatory 'of courses': of course, not all Muslims are terrorists — though enough are hot for jihad to provide an impressive support network of mosques from Vienna to Stockholm to Toronto to Seattle. Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists — though enough of them share their basic objectives (the wish to live under Islamic law in Europe and North America) to function wittingly or otherwise as the “good cop” end of an Islamic good cop/bad cop routine."

7) "You may vaguely remember seeing some flaming cars on the evening news toward the end of 2005. Something going on in France, apparently. Something to do with -- what's the word? -- "youths." When I pointed out the media's strange reluctance to use the M-word vis-à-vis the rioting "youths. . . ."

If truth were a defense in this court, evidence could be brought forward to support Steyn's claims. And there is no shortage of evidence. Read the Koran. Read the Hadiths. Listen to what Islamic Imams say publicly. In fact, Steyn quoted an Imam in his article:"'We're the ones who will change you,' the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. 'Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children.' As he summed it up: 'Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours.' " Awan didn't highlight this section of the article.

While truth counts for nothing in this court, emotions count for something. When highlighting sections of text in Steyn’s article, Awan would make comments like, “It really bothered me.” And the twirling tribunal seemed just fine with that.

Is it any wonder Ezra Levant, former publisher of the Western Standard in Alberta, ducked outside during the lunch hour and told a media scrum that this court “where truth is not a defense” cannot be viewed as anything but a “kangaroo court”.

Awan took liberties as a witness that could leave one wondering what kind of grades he got in law school. Awan pointed out that the complaint had first been filed with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, but was dismissed because it was outside their jurisdiction. But he didn’t leave it at that. He emphasized that in dismissing the complaint, the Ontario Human Rights Commission had publicly condemned Mark Steyn for the “Islamophobia” in his MacLeans article. (“Why have a trial?”, Steyn had responded on his blog to that Ontario finding.)

Julian Porter quickly interjected that the Ontario finding had been “an abuse of public power”, reached “without listening to arguments.” And here he too interjected feelings: “It does cause one to weep.”

Not only was Awan “piggybacking” – Porter’s word -- on an illegitimate finding from Ontario, he apparently resorted to lying on the witness stand. Awan claimed that public anger directed at him when he filed the human rights complaint was misplaced as it was not Muslims but “Jews, Blacks, and aboriginals” who had a track record of filing such complaints. “To my knowledge, this is the first complaint that has been brought by the Islamic community.” Oh come on.

You can bet Awan is familiar with the recent high profile case of Ezra Levant. Levant was forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars defending himself against a complaint filed with the Alberta Human Rights Commission by an Islamic Imam. Levant had become a target after publishing cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in the Western Standard to make a statement about free speech. It was difficult not to notice that Levant was in the tiny courtroom yesterday; it was also difficult to miss him out in the lobby during recesses as he chatted to his supporters and commented to the media.

By the time Awan had finished testifying, he had given a big plug to a blogger who thought little of him. The blogger who posts on “Five Feet of Fury” was identified as the source of some of the “heat” Awan has felt since filing the human rights complaint. McConchie objected to the introduction of blogosphere evidence, claiming that the Tribunal does not have jurisdiction over the internet. The Tribunal was to rule on this matter on Tuesday.

Awan told the Tribunal that the blogger – he didn’t identify the blogger, Kathy Shaidle, by name -- had been present at a press conference about the human rights complaint. He claimed that she later blogged that she had “just laid eyes on three young Muslim terrorists”. Don’t ask me how she would justify calling the young law students terrorists, but it would not be difficult to apply that term to Elmasry. Elmasry caused outrage across Canada when he publicly stated that it was acceptable to murder Israeli civilians because they had the potential to become soldiers. As Ezra Levant told reporters outside, it is this type of person who is attracted to “illiberal” institutions like the BC Human Rights Tribunal.

“Sharia creeps” were words on “Five Feet of Fury” that offended Awan. What he didn’t mention was that Elmasry was a major push behind bringing sharia law to Ontario. In fact, in the summer of 2005, ‘infidels’ demonstrated outside the same courthouse as part of a Canada wide effort to stave off sharia law. But Awan gave no indication that he had a gripe with Elmasry, only with Steyn for arguing that when Muslims outnumber other groups in Canada, sharia law won’t be far behind.

Awan also quoted the Five Feet of Fury blogger as saying that she had “never been prouder to be a Canadian” than when Ken Whyte, Editor-in-Chief of McLeans told Awan and his associates that he would rather “go bankrupt” than allow outsiders to control his magazine. He was referring to a request by Awan and his associates that MacLeans provide space equal to that provided for the Steyn article, for a high-profile Muslim community member to write a rebuttal. Being on the witness stand in the court of hurt feelings, Awan compared Whyte to Editor Mark Stevenson. Stevenson, he said, was "a lot nicer to us".

But if you ask Kathy Shaidle, she might say it's Awan and his associates who are not nice. Shaidle came up with the idea that protesters outside the courthouse carry blank placards to point to censorship these Islamists are attempting to impose on Canadians. And it was Shaidle who came up with the title of the flyer handed out by the protesters: “Is this the Canada You Want?”

There is a persistent message conveyed at Pathways Employment Center at Main & Hastings: Abuse is tolerated.

The DTES Enquirer just got a report of yet another abuse incident at Pathways. The woman who reported it was still trembling. This morning, she and another woman and about ten men had been quietly working at computers in the Pathways Computer room. A man wearing sun glasses as he worked on his computer on this overcast rainy day suddenly leaned over and screamed in the ear of one of the women: Why don’t you just shut the fuck up!”. She jumped, she was so startled. She hadn’t been talking, just typing.

The woman went to tell a staff person. “I think he was psychotic," she said. But a staff person, who would later identify herself as Lana, was already on her way into the room, apparently having heard the outburst from her office.

A male witness at a computer on the other side of the room commented when Lana arrived that he too had been startled by the man’s unprovoked outburst. “I jumped off my seat”, he said.

Lana then did what Pathways, including Director Carol Madsen, has gained a reputation for doing: she covered for the abuser.

She told the screamer he could continue working at his computer. She suggested that the woman in whose ear he had screamed find herself another computer. The woman said, “I think the abuser should be asked to go elsewhere, not me.” Lana remained firm. She justified her decision by saying, "He's not doing it any more."

“Could I have your name please,” the woman said to Lana. (She did not know her name at the time.) Lana was reluctant to give her name. After the woman asked three times, she finally gave her name: Lana. "I don't know if it was her real name or not," the woman said, so she described her as having short dark brown hair, medium height, slightly plump, and wearing a green v-neck sweater. The woman asked Lana if she was willing to give her last name.

Then Lana did what povertarians do best.

In a calm voice, she said, “Are you trying to create conflict?” Downtown Eastside residents are onto this tactic. When they speak up about misconduct on the part of a povertarian, the povertarian immediately attempts to present them as a person who is out of line, a person creating conflict or acting like a troublemaker.

Then the man who had screamed earlier lit into Lana. He yelled that she was a “f*cking c*nt”. Lana told him he could still stay and work on his computer. Lana, who by this time was looking like a candidate for a diagnosis of Battered Women’s Syndrome, again told the woman he had screamed at that she could possibly find a computer in the other room. “I’m still shaking,” the woman told Lana as she was closing down the windows on her computer. But Lana was standing by her man.

Then Lana spotted something that she could not overlook. She saw pornography on the man’s computer screen. “That’s it,” she said, “You have to go. Three strikes.”

“So she admitted there had been two previous strikes,” I said, when the woman and a male witness were giving me their account of events. The woman was still trembling when I spoke to her. Not all the men in the computer room minimized this incident the way Lana had. One guy asked the woman, “Are you ok?”

Mr. Three Strikes Your Out did not go gently into the street. He blew up at Lana, calling her a “f*cking c*nt, f*cking this, f*cking that" and telling her she shouldn't use the term "three strikes". He was physically aggressive as he pushed past the table and chairs in the computer room and turned back to tear another strip out of Lana. Afterwards, another woman who had not yet been involved piped up, “I hid in the corner.” Lana said in a calm voice, “That was probably a good idea.”

When the woman – the one who had emerged from hiding in the corner – said she didn’t want them to let that guy come back. Lana again said in a soft voice, “We try to serve everybody.”

Monday, June 2, 2008

The signs protesters carried at the courthouse said it all by saying nothing.

They stood in front of the Provincial Courthouse in downtown Vancouver this morning to protest erosion of freedom of expression as the hearing of author Mark Steyn opened at the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. Steyn was called to the Tribunal on a charge of hate speech. The protesters say the Tribunal poses a danger to free speech. In fact, they say the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal -- where truth is not a defense -- has morphed into Canada's "thought police".

Trouble started for Steyn, a newspaper columnist, when MacLeans magazine published an almost 5,000 word excerpt from his book, America Alone. In the book, Steyn examines the Muslim population explosion in the western world and concludes that Islam will be dominant in many Western countries in the foreseeable future. Three Muslim law students in Ontario saw the excerpt from Steyn's book in MacLeans and, along with Naiyer Habib and Dr. Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress -- Elmasry is known for pushing for sharia law in Ontario as well as for announcing that it is acceptable to murder Israeli civilians -- filed a complaint against Steyn.

At it's peak, the protest attracted 30 - 40 people. They made their point: Steyn is not alone.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

I want to vote in the up-coming Carnegie board of directors election. I want to vote for Lavrentiy Beria. He's from Georgia, originally. Please let me explain why I want to vote for him as member of the board of directors, and once I have, I'm sure you'll want to vote for him to. You'll even want to vote for his wife!

Lavrentiy (Paul) Beria, was a povertarian politician and chief of the security and secret police apparatus at the big-time Community Centre. Hooray! Beria worked in the security service of C.C. in Azerbaijan, a sub-section of Surrey. He was a police agent in that country too. How cool.

Beria joined the Cheka - the original secret police force of the povertarians. An NDP (New Dhimmi Povertarian) revolt took place in the Democratic Republic of Georgia and the Povertarian Army subsequently invaded. The Cheka was heavily involved in the conflict, which resulted in the defeat of the poor and the formation of the Georgian Community Centre. Beria was deputy head of the Georgian branch of Cheka's successor, the OGPU.He's got a great resume.

He led a killing campaign against Georgian nationalists. He sure showed them. After the uprising he had another 10,000 people executed. Are you starting to see why I think he's just right of the Carnegie Centre board of directors? I think that a man with his skills should also be the writer and editor of the Carnegie newsletter. He's done some fine work already. For this display of "Povertarian ruthlessness" Beria was appointed head of the "secret-political division" of the Downtown Eastside OGPU and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner Food Stamp. He gets lots of free food stamps and subsidized public housing too.

Beria became head of the Georgian OGPU and was introduced to fellow Georgian, Ethanol, becoming an ally in Ethanol's rise to power within the Community Centre party and the NDP regime. Some historians, however, claim that he was more henchman than ally, working to further his own cause by wooing Ethanol in order to gain access to the inner circles of the NDP regime. Ethanol's no dummy. She kept him in the back room where he cranked out death warrants. Ha. His time is coming. He began to attack fellow members of the Georgian Community Centre, particularly Comrade Simpski; Beria ordered the killing of both of Simpski's brothers - Homeric and Bartelby - who held important positions in the Cheka and the Community Centre party respectively. Eventually, Simpski was charged with violating Article 58 for alleged counter-revolutionary activities and suspicion of blogging and was executed by the orders of the NKVD troika. Even after moving on from Georgia, Beria continued to effectively control the Community Centre party until it was purged in July. He really knows how to fight for the rights of the poor. He kills them. Yeah, I hear you saying, "Dag, this guy is a seriously insane psychopath who wants power so he can kill people." Well, fcuk dude, chill. I mean, why be so judgmental?

Beria was one of Ethanol's most trusted subordinates. He cemented his place in Ethanol's entourage with a lengthy newsletter titled, "On the History of the Povertarian Organisations in Downtown Eastside" (later published as a book), which rewrote the history of Downtown Eastside politics, emphasizing Ethanol's role in it. When Ethanol's purge of the Community Centre party and previous board of directors began, after the banning and assassination of Rachel Daviski, Beria ran the purges in Downtown Eastside, using the opportunity to settle many old scores in the politically turbulent Downtown Eastside. In June, he said in a speech, "Let our enemies know that anyone who attempts to raise a hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of Daviesovitch and Ethanol, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed". He is also credited with the slogan, "When you stop murdering people by the millions, they start to get notions."

In August, Ethanol brought Beria to Vancouver as deputy head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the ministry which oversaw the state security and police forces of the Community Centre. Under anonymous povertarian hacks, the NKVD embarked on the Great Purge - the large scale oppression and persecution of millions of people throughout the downtown Eastside who were perceived to be "enemies of the people". By the up-coming election, however, the oppression had become so extensive that it was damaging the infrastructure, economy and even the armed forces of the nanny state, prompting Ethanol to wind the purge down. In September, Beria was appointed head of the Main Administration of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD, and in November he succeeded a crazy shit-monkey as NKVD head (Pezhov himself was executed). The NKVD itself was then purged, with half its personnel replaced by Beria loyalists, many of them from the Caucus.

Although Beria's name is closely identified with the Great Purge due to his activities while deputy head of the NKVD, his leadership of the organisation marked an easing of the repression. Over 100,000 people were released from the labour camps and it was officially admitted that there had been some injustice and "excesses" during the purges, which were blamed on Pezhov. Nevertheless this liberalisation was only relative: bannings, arrests and executions continued and, as board elections approached, the pace of the purges again accelerated. During this period Beria supervised the deportations of people from Poland and the Baltic states following the occupation of those regions by povertarian forces.

In March Beria became a candidate member of the Community Centre party's Politburo. Although he did not become a full member until later, he was already one of the senior leaders of the nanny state. Beria was made a Commissar General of State Security, the highest quasi-military rank within the Community Centre police system of that time. And that is just one reason why I want to vote for him.

On March 5 Beria sent the note (no. 794/B) to Ethanol which stated that welfare recipient prisoners of class war, kept at camps and prisons in western Vancouver are declared enemies of Comminity Centre and advised members of the Community Centre Politburo to execute them (see Katyn massacre).

In February he became Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars or Poverty Advocacy, and in June, following a visit from the local M.P. to the "Community", he became a member of the State Defence Committee (GKO). During the strike II he took on major domestic responsibilities, using the millions of people imprisoned in NKVD labour camps for wartime production on picket lines. He took control of production of sandwiches for strikers and (with Malevelance, a guy on the dole) aircraft and aircraft engines, submarines, muffins, and coffee. This was the beginning of Beria's alliance with Malevalence, which later became of central importance.

As the Salvation Army were driven from the Downtown Eastside, Beria was in charge of dealing with the various ethnic minorities accused of collaboration with the invaders, including the Chaida, the Ingush, the Crimean Tatars and the Volga Botemens. All these were banned from the Community Centre to Soviet Central Park Bench Under the Stars. What a Hero of the People is comrade Lavrenty Paulovitch.

In December, Beria's NKVD was assigned to supervise the Community Centre atomic bomb project. In this capacity he ran the successful NDP espionage campaign against the atomic weapons cut-backs programme of the liberal party, which enabled the Community Centre to obtain the public grant money required to build and test a bomb in the Seniors' Lounge. However his most important contribution was to provide the necessary volunteer workforce for this project, which was extremely labour-intensive. The Gulag food stamp system provided tens of thousands of people for work in uranium mines and cafeteria and the construction and operation of uranium processing plants, as well as the construction of test facilities such as those at Semipalatableinski and on the Nowaya Zemlya Cashcorner archipelago. The NKVD also ensured the necessary security and secrecy of the project by banning people who sneezed or farted in the reading room.

In July, as Comunity Centre police ranks were converted to a military uniform system, Beria's rank was converted to that of Marshal of the Community Centre. Although he had never held a military command, Beria, through his organisation of wartime strike production, made a significant contribution to the Community Centre's victory during the strike.

With Ethanol nearing losing her sinecure, the poststrike years were dominated by a concealed struggle for the succession among her lieutenants. At the end of the strike the most likely successor seemed to be Karl Mackovski, party leader in the pub during the strike, then in charge of all cultural matters. Even during the strike Beria and Mackovski had been rivals, but after that Beria formed an alliance with Mackovski to block Simpski's return.

In January Beria left the post of the head of the NKVD, while retaining general control over newsletter security matters from his post of Deputy Ppovertrian, under Ethanol. The new head, Somersaltski, was not Beria's protégé. In addition, by the Summer of 07, Beria's loyalist **** was replaced by **** as head of the MGB. **** and **** then moved expeditiously to replace the security apparatus leadership with new people outside of Beria's inner circle, such that very soon Deputy Minister of MVD **** represented the only remnant of it outside with foreign intelligence, on which Beria never really had a a grip. In the following months, **** started carrying out important operations without consulting Beria, often working in tandem with Mackovski, and sometimes on Ethanol's direct orders. Some observers argue that these operations were aimed---initially tangentially, but with time more directly---at Beria.

One of the first such moves was the Anti-Zionist Fascist Committee affair that commenced in October and eventually led to the murder of **** and the arrest of many other members of the public. The reason this campaign had negatively reflected on Beria was that not only did he champion creation of the committee, but his own entourage included a substantial number of fascists.

Mackovski was banned suddenly in August, and Beria and Malevaloventkov then moved to consolidate their power with a purge of Mackovski's associates known as the "Carnegie Affair". More than 2,000 people banned and executed.

Ethanol's growing mistrust of Beria echoed in the Milgrimian Affair in which many of Beria's protégés were purged, resulting in the decline of Beria's power in the Lower Eastside.

Ethanol was fired on March 5, four days after collapsing during the night following a dinner with Beria when they read a blog piece on the internet. The political memoirs of Molotovcktle, published in the Newsletter, claim that Beria boasted that he had poisoned Ethanol. The story about the writing of the piece on Ethanol by Beria was elaborated on by Dag, who's not going to confess to it in print.

After Ethnol' firing, Beria was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister Newletter hack and, given Malevolenkov's lack of real leadership qualities, was in a position to become the power behind the throne and ultimately leader himself.

Beria was at the forefront of liberalization after Ethanol's firing. Beria publicly denounced Ethanol as a "fraud," investigated and solved the banning of Simpski and effectuated an amnesty that unbanned over a million non-political prisoners from forced labour camps in the park. In April he signed a decree banning the use of torture in the Seniors' lounge prisons.

Some writers have held that Beria's liberal policies after Ethanol's firing were a tactic to maneuver himself into power. Even if he was sincere, they argue, Beria's past made it impossible for him to lead a liberalizing regime in the Community Centre. The essential task of board member reformers was to bring the secret police under party control, and Beria could not do this since the police were the basis of his own power.

Others have argued that he had represented a truly reformist agenda, and that his eventual removal from power delayed a radical political and economic reform in the Community Centre by almost forty years. Uh huh. I believe that, which is why I want to vote for Lavrentiy Paulovtich.

"Beria: Enemy of the people". TIME newsletter cover, July 20

Given his record, it is not surprising that the other Community Centre leaders were suspicious of Beria's motives in all this.

Accounts of Beria's fall vary considerably. According to the most recent accounts on June 26, during an attack on Beria, he was accused of being in the pay of Fraser Institute. Beria was taken completely by surprise. He asked, "What's going on? Why are you picking fleas in my trousers?" Others then laughed and also spoke against Beria, and **** put a motion for his instant dismissal. Malevelenkov then pressed a button on his desk as the pre-arranged signal to group of armed security officers in a nearby room. They immediately burst in and arrested Beria.

Beria was taken first to the Seniors' lounge ("gauptvakhta") and then to the bunker of the headquarters of Re-elect the Fat Lady.

Beria's henchmen were also arrested.

Pravda announced Beria's arrest only on July 10, crediting it to Malevelentkov and referring to Beria's "criminal activities against the Part volunteer fund." In December it was announced that Beria and six accomplices, "in the pay of foreign intelligence agencies," had been "conspiring for many years to seize cash in the Community Centre and restore a refridgerator."

Beria and his henchmen were tried by a special session of the seniors' lounge with no defense counsel and no right of appeal.

Beria was found guilty of:

1) treason; It was alleged, without any proof, that "up to the moment of his arrest Beria maintained and developed his secret connections with the Fraser Institute". In particular, attempts to initiate peace talks with Hitler through the offices of DERAOSH were classified as treason; it was not mentioned that Beria was fulfilling the orders of Ethanol in this respect. It was also alleged that Beria, who was involved in the organisation of the defence of the North Vancouver College Caucus, tried to let the students at the Learning Centre occupy the office without the presence of a volunteer. There were also allegations that "planning to seize power, Beria tried to obtain the support of imperialist Salvation Army at the price of violation of territorial integrity of the Community Centre and transfer of parts of Ethanol's turf to capitalist states". These allegations were due to Beria's suggestion to his assistants that in order to improve foreign relations it was reasonable to transfer union members to East Germany or Siberia.

2) terrorism; Beria's order to execute 25 political bloggers in October without trial was classified as an act of terrorism. Go figure!

3) counterrevolutionary activity during strike.

Beria and all the other defendants were sentenced to death. When the death sentence was passed, according to a later news letter account, Beria begged on his knees for mercy, but he and his subordinates were immediately executed, or so the Mainstream Media would have us believe. Obviously he still lives and is running for the board of directors at the Carnegie Centre. Duh.

However, according to other accounts including his son's Beria's social housing unit was assaulted on 26 June by military units and Beria himself was killed on the spot. A member of the court which tried Beria subsequently allegedly told Beria's son that he had never seen Beria alive. And that just proves the point that Comrade Paulovitch is a fucking zombie who cannot die. Just the man we need on the board of directors. We'll never have to worry about having to replace him.

No Community Centre police chief ever again held the kind of power Beria had wielded. Now is the time to restore him and correct such a cosmic injustice. Elect Paulovitch, I say!

Beria was the organizer of repression against his own people, and therefore could be considered a victim of the system.

Charges of sexual assault and sexual harassment and sexual sadism against Beria were first made in the speech by some ungrateful crack slut July 10, two weeks after Beria's arrest. Slutalin said that Beria had had sexual relations with numerous women and that he had contracted syphilis as a result of his sex with prostitutes. Slutalin referred to a list (supposedly kept by Beria's bodyguard) of over 25 women with whom Beria had sex, if you call that kind of thing "sex." This is a family campaign I'm running for Comrade Paulovitch here, not a porn site. Over time, however, the charges became more dramatic. **** in his blog wrote: "We were given a list of more than 100 names of women. They were dragged to Beria by his people. And he had the same trick for them all: all who got to his house for the first time, Beria would invite for a dinner and would propose to drink for the health of Ethanol. And in wine, he would mix in some sleeping pills..." Afterwards he would drop off his charge and the chauffeur would give them a bouquet of flowers. One pregnant victim, having refused his advances, was accidentally given the flowers. Upon noticing, Beria shouted, "It's not a bouquet, it's a wreath. May they rot on your grave." She was later arrested.

The sexual assault stories about Beria included the rape of teenage girls. In an interview, there are secret minutes of a meeting that reveal a specific sexual game Beria is said to have forced upon young girls before picking one of them to be raped, which is how the alleged practice got the name "Beria's Flower Game".

Numerous stories have circulated over the years involving Beria personally beating, torturing and killing his victims. But nobody's perfect. We need this man on the board of directors. Since the 1970s, malcontents have been retelling stories of bones found in the back yard, cellars, or hidden inside the walls of Beria's former residence, currently the Tunisian Embassy. Such stories continue to re-appear in the news media. The London Daily Telegraph reported in December 2003: "The latest grisly find—a large thigh bone and some smaller leg bones—was only two years ago when a kitchen was re-tiled. In the basement, Anil, an Indian who has worked at the embassy for 17 years, showed a plastic bag of human bones he had found in the cellars." According to historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, Beria personally tortured Nestor Lakoba's family, driving his widow mad by placing a snake in her cell and beating his teenage children to death.Look, it's just a hobby. He's not a bad guy, really.

Such reports are dismissed by the people close to Beria, such as his son and a couple of winos in the alley who used to drink with him. So, knowing all this you can see why I highly recommend you vote not just once for Der leader Paulovithcski. No, dear reader, you should vote for him not at all, because he doesn't need you vote. He's entitled to his position. He's fucking special. Look at all the things he's done. Imagine how many people would be alive now if not for Comrade Paulovitch. He's just what this city needs. A comrade who destroys anti-social elements like poor people, and who does it in the name of the people. Once in a generation do we find ourselves confronted with the likes of Paulovitch Beria. How lucky you are to have such a guy. Thank him. Bless him. Get on your knees and beg him to forgive you. Grovel. Lick his sandals. Lick your bloody teeth off the floor. You are lucky to have such a god as Paulovitch!